A major focus of the polyolefin industry in recent years has been on the development of new catalysts that deliver new and improved products. Bulky ligand transition metal compounds, for example, are now widely utilized in catalyst compositions to produce polyolefin polymers, such as polyethylene polymers.
WO 03/09162 discloses bridged bi-aromatic ligands, methods for their preparation, transition metal compounds derived therefrom and catalysts for olefin polymerization. However, the methods disclosed to synthesize the ligands involve many reaction steps and are therefore time consuming. This increases the cost of producing the ligands and negatively impacts the economics of catalyst manufacture.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide new routes to bridged bi-aromatic ligands that contain fewer steps and that are simpler to perform.